Venus Williams dropped out of the U.S. Open tennis tournament Wednesday, citing a recent diagnosis of Sjögren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease known to cause dryness of the mouth and eyes as well as fatigue and joint pain. Like most other autoimmune diseases, Sjögren’s affects many more women than men. Why is that?

My body continues to have great days, but I wish I could say the same about my tech toys. This morning, my laptop computer breathed its last breath. This makes three computers that have died spectacular deaths in the past year and a half.

First it was my ultra-portable HP, then it was my MacBook Air, and now it’s my regular HP. (I used to work full time as a web designer/information architect, which is part of the reason why I had so many computers.)

At this moment, I’m typing on a 9 year old laptop computer that I had tucked away in the office closet. It still turns on, but that doesn’t say much…every few minutes it overheats, and immediately shuts down. I don’t exactly know which version of Windows it’s running, but at least I didn’t see a DOS prompt when I powered it up!

And unfortunately, where I live, purchasing a new computer isn’t as easy as logging on to Amazon.com or driving down to the local BestBuy. I hope to fix this problem as soon as possible, however, and get back to my regular blogging activities.

Frustrating, I know…but I’d much rather have my computers throw a fit than my body. Plus, the first few days of Spring are starting to appear, and that’s always a wonderful reason to spend more time outside, away from the computer.